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Malaysia's ISA: A battle won, but not the
war
By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR - When about 200 activists outside
Malaysia's Kamunting jail on Sunday demanded the release
of six opposition leaders, they had no inkling they were
about to score a major victory against a draconian
security law used to keep these dissenters behind bars.
But now that four of the six have been freed,
activists are looking beyond their unexpected release -
and are aiming for nothing less than the repeal of the
Internal Security Act (ISA) that allows detention
without trial.
At the same time, their euphoria
is tempered with caution. Few critics are ready to say
that the release - which came at the expiry of the
two-year detention orders for the six - means that the
government has become kinder or more respectful of human
rights.
"I will believe it when [Deputy Prime
Minister and Home Minister] Abdullah [Badawi] repeals
the ISA law," remarked opposition politician Mustapha
Ali. "The ISA is an entrenched piece of legislation that
is not easily repealed ... the police will not allow
it."
Opposition leaders such as Wan Azizah Wan
Ismail have quickly called for the repeal of the law, a
colonial relic that was first enacted for use against
communist rebels but later applied against critics of
the government.
Since independence in 1957, the
ISA has been used to detain more than 3,200 people and
many had been accused generally of seeking to undermine
national security.
Opposition leader Lim Kit
Siang called for a "full parliamentary debate for the
repeal of the ISA", but said Sunday's release was a
"face-saving measure" for Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohamad, who was in Evian, France, for the Group of
Eight (G8) meeting.
"He [Mahathir] did not want
to be questioned in Evian about their detention, not
when European parliaments are incensed that preventive
detention is used in Malaysia against political
opponents, with broad hints that it could worsen
bilateral ties. The United States is not happy about it
either," said media commentator M G G Pillai.
"Dr Mahathir wisely decided discretion is the
better part of valor and meekly submitted. He wants no
more egg on his face than he has," he wrote in a
commentary on Tuesday.
On Sunday, government
officials did not issue an extension of the current
detention orders of the six - an extension would have
meant another two years' detention.
For
instance, to his surprise, officials took Saari Sungib,
one of the six detainees, to the bus station, pressed a
bus ticket in his hands and told him he was free. By
midnight the police had released four detainees and
confirmed they would release the last two leaders on
June 12.
Among the detainees were five top
leaders of the National Justice Party or Parti Keadilan
of jailed former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim,
now led by his wife, Wan Azizah. These are Ezam Mohamed,
Tian Chua, Saari Sungib, Lokman Adam and Dr Badrul Amin,
arrested in April 2001 for allegedly plotting to
overthrow the government - charges that the party
vehemently denied as political victimization.
The other is journalist and independent film
producer Hishamuddin Rais, who along with Chua have yet
to get their freedom since they are under remand.
In September, even the much-maligned Federal
Court, the country's highest, declared their arrest and
detention unlawful and said there was ample evidence of
political motivation behind the arrest.
Police
seem more interested in gathering political intelligence
and details of the opposition leaders' sex lives then
protecting national security, one of the judges
declared.
Even the ISA review board, which
critics see as a government lackey, had twice
recommended the detainees' release.
The
government-appointed National Human Rights Commission
also demanded their release and repeal of the ISA.
However, activists have expressed concern about the
commission's proposed substitutes for the ISA - which it
said can be modeled after the US Patriot Act and other
terrorism-related legislation passed after September 11,
2001. In recent weeks, pressure mounted with lawmakers
from Britain, Japan and the Netherlands and a group of
40 Islamic scholars and international rights
organizations such as Amnesty International calling for
their release.
Unnamed government officials told
the local media that the detainees were released because
they were no longer considered a threat to national
security. "We hope they have learned their lesson and
desist from anti-government activities," a senior
official said.
There are about 120 ISA detainees
at present, many of them targeted under the government's
anti-terrorism campaign.
Several are members of
the Jemaah Islamiyah group, which has been branded as
terrorist by several governments and which seeks a
pan-Islamic state in Southeast Asia. Police, however,
have not furnished evidence.
Still, the man who
signed the detainees' release orders, Abdullah Ahmad
Badawi, has won some kudos for himself and has confirmed
perceptions by some that he was more tolerant of
dissent. Abdullah is set to take over from Mahathir when
he retires in October after 22 years in power.
But the detainees' release is a boost not just
for Abdullah but for Parti Keadilan, which has been
drifting with its top leaders in detention.
The
party is expected to renew the stalled campaign to
secure the release of Anwar Ibrahim, who is in jail on
sodomy and corruption charges that his camp says were
part of a conspiracy against him after he fell out with
Mahathir in 1998.
The case of Anwar, himself an
ISA detainee at one point, is by no means unrelated to
that of the freed detainees. Pillai says the detainees
were held for their links to Anwar, and that now "it is
the turn of Anwar's release".
Reports say that
Islamic governments in the Middle East have expressed
concern about Anwar's continued imprisonment. "With the
Organization of Islamic Conference summit in October [in
Malaysia], in what is to be his [Mahathir's] crowning
achievement in office, could he withstand the pressures
of OIC leaders, as he could not the European leaders?"
asked Pillai.
(Inter Press Service)
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